Staff and pupils at Birtley East Primary School, in Highfield, Gateshead, were able to finish the summer on a high after receiving a glowing report from Government inspectors.

Special measures is the term given to a school deemed to be failing by Ofsted.

In 2005, the school was placed in special measures due to problems with its leadership and management. This meant it was inspected more regularly and given targets for improvement.

Less than 24 months later, inspectors have announced the school, which brought in a new head, is now performing much better and teachers have been praised for the result.

The latest report states: “Birtley East provides a satisfactory standard of education with a number of good features. It has improved dramatically since the previous inspection.”

It went on: “The quality of teaching in particular has improve beyond recognition and is now solidly good, with some outstanding features.”

Headteacher Kate Rickeard, who helped implement the changes, said: “We are delighted with this report and it has been down to a lot of hard work from the staff. I think the parents were quite shocked when we were placed in special measures because they didn’t really know why it happened. But when we started to make changes they could see the difference and knew what we were doing now was right.

“We’ve made lots of improvements by changing the curriculum and helping the staff to build on their teaching skills. The structure of the lessons has changed for the better and we’ll be revamping the curriculum again from September to show that we are still thinking of ways to move forward.”